I’m an African I’m proud to have been
born and have lived my life on that
grand primordial continent I believe
that the great work of Africa of the
peoples of Africa are the great
wildernesses that store a Mane on that
continent the Serengeti the Congo the
Kalahari the Okavango these words
resonate with us I was inspired by
nature as a child my parents who are
here we’re very careful to take me out
into the protected areas of southern
Africa and it was the animals that
inspired me the contact with elephants
my mother used to call the two of us
stick insects with binoculars fascinated
by the birds the insects the plants
everything around us it just grew every
year those two little stick insects one
day discovered the Okavango Delta now
this is to me the most pristine
wilderness area I’ve ever visited I was
privileged to live there for five years
and enjoy this wilderness for what it is
it’s an 18,000 square kilometer wetland
wilderness filled by the waters from the
Angolan highlands this wonderful
wilderness is visible from space an
emerald gem in the middle of the
Kalahari sand Basin the longest
continuous piece of sand on earth it’s
assuming in a little bit to have a look
at this catchment it’s almost
anachronistic it shouldn’t be this way
it shouldn’t be so perfect
it was the Angolan war it was civil war
following that that kept people out of
there he visits parts of that catchment
today you’ll find broken down here
copters and tanks next year we are going
to take dugout canoes mokoros as we do
every year but we’re going to take them
from the top of those islands from the
Bay Plateau all the way down that river
to document it to share it with the
world to study it and then cross the
Okavango Delta as we do each year just
look at the scene this is from a place
called Mambo this is the view from the
camp there off into this wilderness this
is the home of one of the largest
remaining populations of elephant on
earth 60,000 elephant will move in and
out of the Delta each year this is part
of a population of 150,000 that
freely without fences between Angola
Namibia Botswana Zambia these countries
zooming into the background you may not
have seen it there’s a thousands of
birds at a fish trap in September that
inspired me to cross the Delta every
single year with my brother to study and
my wife is already and she’s here too to
study the wetland birds they can choose
with their wings when something goes
wrong when something changes up in the
catchment they’ll tell us and we hope
over the next nine years in this project
to pick up those changes if they happen
and I hope they don’t what people often
say you take risks you’re going out
there unarmed we often do it barefoot we
do it very simply we live the way of the
by a river Bushman and hippos are not
dangerous the by you’ve taught us how to
interact with them sensitively on our
mokoros I’m talking to her right now
I’m asking her not to rot and launch
herself into the water with their kids
and become part of our expedition and
she agreed and she said fine I’ll stay
there but she was dancing like that but
special experiences with these my heroes
these are the by AE men the leaders of
their community and gdb on the left hand
side they see judge on his shirt as
Africa’s not for sissies and that was a
first indication of the experience of a
bar to have with them it’s not for
sissies and my wife is not a sissy these
guys toward us are to Paul at over nine
years it took me to be able to do what
we do standing up in those dugout canoes
to do it safely and sensitively we don’t
take any risks we want to interact with
the wildlife around us they’ve shared
with us the Jurado of the music that
speaks to your soul in Africa that’s
where we all come from they taught us a
lot of smoked fish how to find and eat
the the water lily bulbs the water
lilies seeds we find in the flowers they
taught us how to navigate how to follow
the flow of this amazing River across
the Okavango it’s 225 kilometres we we
even path we get lost a lot but that’s
part of the journey the kids the future
of yaacov anga urbanization is dragging
these communities away to the cities and
we need to bring them back we need to
make these kids love that place for what
it is looking starting on a bokura
already as a young man in this
wilderness I found the mayor’s parrot I
did my PhD on it
this parrot has everything he could
possibly once it lives in the wilderness
it taught me the secrets why are so
successful why it is distributed
throughout Africa widespread and
abundant I took this knowledge to South
Africa to the most endangered parrot in
Africa if not the most endangered parrot
on earth the Cape part just look how
beautiful the shining example of a bird
is it inspired me it inspired me to
fight for it to try and fix the problems
as bird faces I’m gonna flick through a
few slides now of this creature that has
captivated my life we have invested in a
small farm in the distributional range I
will live my life with this parrot just
look at it it has no home it has no food
it has nowhere to stay we destroyed its
wilderness its forests these are two
youngsters interacting with us I’ve
never experienced studied or seen a bird
that enjoys flying more this bird does
not belong in a cage they fly 200
kilometers sometimes for the coastline
to feeding sites and they’ll fly back
the same day just go they love it so
much they’re socializing happens on the
wing and will never ever be part of that
interaction but we must protect it this
is a Seppala singer project we’re doing
a South Africa through the University of
Cape Sanh you see this the red dots are
where they’re found it so scattered
archipelago of these remaining forests
that we’ve destroyed they’re all
degraded all of the yellow wood trees
have been removed
historical images of some of these trees
some of them are large as some of the
great redwoods of of America yellow wood
named after its timber unfortunately
much of this timber was went to mining
timber to the Industrial Revolution to
railway sleepers lost forever
we also made wonderful cathedrals
Trappist monks made this with their
hands the lights of heavens coming in
and reflecting off that beautiful yellow
wood on the other side there you have a
thousand-year-old yellow wood tree one
of five remaining on earth Lords of the
forest
it used to be hundreds if not thousands
scattered throughout those mountains
this is the fruit that the parrots miss
it is medicinal it is a perfectly
balanced parrot food it was 99 percent
of their diet historically it’s not in
their diet anymore they used to nest
exclusively in these trees that has gone
from them to they’ve also an hour come
into captivity we’ve got to the point
two years ago where there are more kept
parrots in captivity than there are in
the wild they’re deeply inbred and
useless to us in any reintroduction we
have to focus on the ones that remain in
the wild the pecan nut from Amer
in 1972 the parents had nothing they
were at their lowest point they
discovered the first commercial crops of
this pecan nut in the Eastern Cape the
farmers I’ve got the original letters
rights to the government saying please
help us peace witness what these birds
are doing to us they are tearing our
orchards apart flocks of over a thousand
we’re descending down and just literally
destroying their farms that were
shooting them they were catching them in
Nets and clubbing them to death they
just wanted to get this bird away they
would select the government in their
reaction the population collapsed by
1980 there were almost none left we’re
now sitting with between 800 and
thousand of these poor birds remaining
here’s one eating a pecan nut these nuts
are terrible for them but shuck stains
your beak you can see this is my finger
off the D shucking one pecan nut that
says I got for a week no minor washing
we’ll take it off the parrots have the
same problem
now this parrot his way of dealing with
it is he’ll go and drink some water
after eating two pecan nuts and then fly
to a stand of eucalyptus trees nearby
and I followed him in I was watching him
for weeks that was chewing on everything
the branch is the the flowers the seeds
I couldn’t figure out what they were
doing
and I went to a pharmacy and got some
eucalyptus essential oil and dripped it
on my stand finger and it cleaned it
instantly they had figured that out
they’re clever adaptable creatures that
the last ones standing in those forests
in all the other forests endemics almost
gone but they were not prepared for this
for a virus that outbreak that we picked
up in 2008 from these shocking
photographs was the motivation for us to
begin a project that National Geographic
came on they came on very quickly at a
very very important time gave me the
funds I needed to get out there and
catch these birds and do all of the DNA
work we needed to do but just kept on
happening every year we saw these birds
in this terrible state per citizen beak
and feather disease stripping the darn
feathers
stripping their flat feathers to the
point where that cannot fly and breaking
the beak so they cannot eat and they
starve this bird is uncomfortable
it’s just chewing on it the specific
bird I chased him for the whole day when
I found him the next day at winds
sub-zero who was the first cold snap of
the winter he definitely died this one
we managed to save yeah as catching them
for the first time as first men ever
crossed that line with something in the
wilderness something wild I’ve made the
choice of my PhD not to catch any
we in the first year court 16 eight of
them were infected with this virus
shockingly 50% of this population were
infected the next year we caught 47 of
them every single one of those birds was
infected with this virus it was linked
to a lack of food that year the drought
was really bad hail came in and knocked
the flowers of our pecan nuts we’ve
actually protected one watered as a food
resource a safe food resource for them
but depend on it for five months that’s
our sanctuary we have opportunity to see
up to 30% of the global population
flying above that sanctuary sharing with
us all of that activity and flattener
socializing we then identified the
genome we looked at the dendrogram to
try and see whether this was an endemic
virus or new one that came from
somewhere else
it was endemic it had always been there
we were the problem we had destroyed
these forests they were not feeding
themselves effectively they were
malnourished and the virus took over
each year each year in the malt season
we there was found dead birds we engaged
the media to find people to help us we
would mobilize we’ve got every church
every shopping center in the the
distributional range of this parrot to
try and mobilize people to get them
before they’re dead we achieved that
this is Ellis she was the first one to
come in a real fight so I’ve never seen
a parrot in such poor condition she was
50% underweight she remained in this
incubator for four months unable to lift
her head and when she did she showed us
while she was still alive she’s a
fighter and she was hissing at us every
day buying a batch of finger off when
you’re trying to feed her but she did
make it
she made it along with buddy with King
and with raid on the side there
National Geographic joined us for the
release of these birds please go online
and try and find that video was a very
very special moment for all of us it’s a
moment that motivates me to carry on my
work with these birds we work with
communities these are our growers and
some Thompson pandu and they’re happy to
have us they lost their wilderness the
by a yeast we’ll have this these forests
used to be able to support them same as
the mother Okavango can support the BAE
but not anymore we are teaching these
people hard – and funding it’s hard to
find seeds how to germinate them we then
also called micro nurseries in their
homes it’s it doesn’t make sense for us
to build 50 little micro nurseries all
over the villages at
decentralized is everything but involves
people it involves communities the kids
are watering these plants this granny
over here I interviewed her two weeks
ago or three weeks ago and she said to
me that every morning she comes and she
sprinkles laughs on these trees and it
works it really does she grows them
faster than anyone else in six months
she hasn’t met the Hackney want them to
plant there’s me happy as will help you
to spot to plant those trees into these
forests that need them so much this is
our planting team at hala they’re
planting wild olives wild plums these
are Pisa grow a little bit faster than
the other words it’s an interim plan so
in ten years time they have food
orchards to try and feed in is that the
University of Forte we are reading the
green campus initiative there this is a
university within their range parrots do
visit this and we have planted one and a
thousand trees on campus with those
students we’ve put up hundreds of nice
boxes throughout the mountain range
trying to give them places to live
they’re not using them as much as we
would like but we did have our first
success last year with three chicks
coming from one of our boxes it’s going
to take a while before they adopt them
they need to prove that these are safe
places to breed now I’m going to finish
off by talking a little bit about the
sense of place and wilderness now the
only way that I can describe this
feeling of being in a wild place to a
person that’s never been in the
wilderness and the true wilderness is
when you’re in a big football stadium
you all by yourself the lights are on
there’s a big piece of art you look at
this suddenly the lights got it’s pitch
dark it’s the middle of night it’s time
to feel that there’s something else
there there’s someone else there that’s
something else that thing that’s making
you feel uneasy in the darkness is the
wild in the middle of your city still
there yeah I’m still here and that is
something we need to open ourselves to
when you’re in a wilderness area it’s
just plain to see we’re all invigorated
by it we feel alive almost for the first
time that’s there to be had in your
garden up in the top of a mountain where
you go hiking your favorite river where
you go kayaking
we will open ourselves to that we all I
know here are addicted to it in some way
and even if we never get to go to the
Okavango
we still need to care as a globe as a
global community and make it a world
heritage site
we’re fighting to do that’s why I’m
working with you guys to do I’m here to
stand in front of the National
Geographic Society and I’m so proud to
be part of this organization now you
guys have been doing it for 125 years
you’re gonna carry on do it for another
hundred twenty-five we have a better
penning you’ve done or the photographs
we’ve taken and put out into the world
to four hundred million people
carry on supporting dereck and Beverly
and trying to save that great big cats
of this world Mike Fay he worries about
the fisheries and the elephants and put
his word out there I love the fact that
you’ve given me a blog and I’ve been
able to put this out into the world
congratulations for everything you’ve
done and thank you for your time
Oh
born and have lived my life on that
grand primordial continent I believe
that the great work of Africa of the
peoples of Africa are the great
wildernesses that store a Mane on that
continent the Serengeti the Congo the
Kalahari the Okavango these words
resonate with us I was inspired by
nature as a child my parents who are
here we’re very careful to take me out
into the protected areas of southern
Africa and it was the animals that
inspired me the contact with elephants
my mother used to call the two of us
stick insects with binoculars fascinated
by the birds the insects the plants
everything around us it just grew every
year those two little stick insects one
day discovered the Okavango Delta now
this is to me the most pristine
wilderness area I’ve ever visited I was
privileged to live there for five years
and enjoy this wilderness for what it is
it’s an 18,000 square kilometer wetland
wilderness filled by the waters from the
Angolan highlands this wonderful
wilderness is visible from space an
emerald gem in the middle of the
Kalahari sand Basin the longest
continuous piece of sand on earth it’s
assuming in a little bit to have a look
at this catchment it’s almost
anachronistic it shouldn’t be this way
it shouldn’t be so perfect
it was the Angolan war it was civil war
following that that kept people out of
there he visits parts of that catchment
today you’ll find broken down here
copters and tanks next year we are going
to take dugout canoes mokoros as we do
every year but we’re going to take them
from the top of those islands from the
Bay Plateau all the way down that river
to document it to share it with the
world to study it and then cross the
Okavango Delta as we do each year just
look at the scene this is from a place
called Mambo this is the view from the
camp there off into this wilderness this
is the home of one of the largest
remaining populations of elephant on
earth 60,000 elephant will move in and
out of the Delta each year this is part
of a population of 150,000 that
freely without fences between Angola
Namibia Botswana Zambia these countries
zooming into the background you may not
have seen it there’s a thousands of
birds at a fish trap in September that
inspired me to cross the Delta every
single year with my brother to study and
my wife is already and she’s here too to
study the wetland birds they can choose
with their wings when something goes
wrong when something changes up in the
catchment they’ll tell us and we hope
over the next nine years in this project
to pick up those changes if they happen
and I hope they don’t what people often
say you take risks you’re going out
there unarmed we often do it barefoot we
do it very simply we live the way of the
by a river Bushman and hippos are not
dangerous the by you’ve taught us how to
interact with them sensitively on our
mokoros I’m talking to her right now
I’m asking her not to rot and launch
herself into the water with their kids
and become part of our expedition and
she agreed and she said fine I’ll stay
there but she was dancing like that but
special experiences with these my heroes
these are the by AE men the leaders of
their community and gdb on the left hand
side they see judge on his shirt as
Africa’s not for sissies and that was a
first indication of the experience of a
bar to have with them it’s not for
sissies and my wife is not a sissy these
guys toward us are to Paul at over nine
years it took me to be able to do what
we do standing up in those dugout canoes
to do it safely and sensitively we don’t
take any risks we want to interact with
the wildlife around us they’ve shared
with us the Jurado of the music that
speaks to your soul in Africa that’s
where we all come from they taught us a
lot of smoked fish how to find and eat
the the water lily bulbs the water
lilies seeds we find in the flowers they
taught us how to navigate how to follow
the flow of this amazing River across
the Okavango it’s 225 kilometres we we
even path we get lost a lot but that’s
part of the journey the kids the future
of yaacov anga urbanization is dragging
these communities away to the cities and
we need to bring them back we need to
make these kids love that place for what
it is looking starting on a bokura
already as a young man in this
wilderness I found the mayor’s parrot I
did my PhD on it
this parrot has everything he could
possibly once it lives in the wilderness
it taught me the secrets why are so
successful why it is distributed
throughout Africa widespread and
abundant I took this knowledge to South
Africa to the most endangered parrot in
Africa if not the most endangered parrot
on earth the Cape part just look how
beautiful the shining example of a bird
is it inspired me it inspired me to
fight for it to try and fix the problems
as bird faces I’m gonna flick through a
few slides now of this creature that has
captivated my life we have invested in a
small farm in the distributional range I
will live my life with this parrot just
look at it it has no home it has no food
it has nowhere to stay we destroyed its
wilderness its forests these are two
youngsters interacting with us I’ve
never experienced studied or seen a bird
that enjoys flying more this bird does
not belong in a cage they fly 200
kilometers sometimes for the coastline
to feeding sites and they’ll fly back
the same day just go they love it so
much they’re socializing happens on the
wing and will never ever be part of that
interaction but we must protect it this
is a Seppala singer project we’re doing
a South Africa through the University of
Cape Sanh you see this the red dots are
where they’re found it so scattered
archipelago of these remaining forests
that we’ve destroyed they’re all
degraded all of the yellow wood trees
have been removed
historical images of some of these trees
some of them are large as some of the
great redwoods of of America yellow wood
named after its timber unfortunately
much of this timber was went to mining
timber to the Industrial Revolution to
railway sleepers lost forever
we also made wonderful cathedrals
Trappist monks made this with their
hands the lights of heavens coming in
and reflecting off that beautiful yellow
wood on the other side there you have a
thousand-year-old yellow wood tree one
of five remaining on earth Lords of the
forest
it used to be hundreds if not thousands
scattered throughout those mountains
this is the fruit that the parrots miss
it is medicinal it is a perfectly
balanced parrot food it was 99 percent
of their diet historically it’s not in
their diet anymore they used to nest
exclusively in these trees that has gone
from them to they’ve also an hour come
into captivity we’ve got to the point
two years ago where there are more kept
parrots in captivity than there are in
the wild they’re deeply inbred and
useless to us in any reintroduction we
have to focus on the ones that remain in
the wild the pecan nut from Amer
in 1972 the parents had nothing they
were at their lowest point they
discovered the first commercial crops of
this pecan nut in the Eastern Cape the
farmers I’ve got the original letters
rights to the government saying please
help us peace witness what these birds
are doing to us they are tearing our
orchards apart flocks of over a thousand
we’re descending down and just literally
destroying their farms that were
shooting them they were catching them in
Nets and clubbing them to death they
just wanted to get this bird away they
would select the government in their
reaction the population collapsed by
1980 there were almost none left we’re
now sitting with between 800 and
thousand of these poor birds remaining
here’s one eating a pecan nut these nuts
are terrible for them but shuck stains
your beak you can see this is my finger
off the D shucking one pecan nut that
says I got for a week no minor washing
we’ll take it off the parrots have the
same problem
now this parrot his way of dealing with
it is he’ll go and drink some water
after eating two pecan nuts and then fly
to a stand of eucalyptus trees nearby
and I followed him in I was watching him
for weeks that was chewing on everything
the branch is the the flowers the seeds
I couldn’t figure out what they were
doing
and I went to a pharmacy and got some
eucalyptus essential oil and dripped it
on my stand finger and it cleaned it
instantly they had figured that out
they’re clever adaptable creatures that
the last ones standing in those forests
in all the other forests endemics almost
gone but they were not prepared for this
for a virus that outbreak that we picked
up in 2008 from these shocking
photographs was the motivation for us to
begin a project that National Geographic
came on they came on very quickly at a
very very important time gave me the
funds I needed to get out there and
catch these birds and do all of the DNA
work we needed to do but just kept on
happening every year we saw these birds
in this terrible state per citizen beak
and feather disease stripping the darn
feathers
stripping their flat feathers to the
point where that cannot fly and breaking
the beak so they cannot eat and they
starve this bird is uncomfortable
it’s just chewing on it the specific
bird I chased him for the whole day when
I found him the next day at winds
sub-zero who was the first cold snap of
the winter he definitely died this one
we managed to save yeah as catching them
for the first time as first men ever
crossed that line with something in the
wilderness something wild I’ve made the
choice of my PhD not to catch any
we in the first year court 16 eight of
them were infected with this virus
shockingly 50% of this population were
infected the next year we caught 47 of
them every single one of those birds was
infected with this virus it was linked
to a lack of food that year the drought
was really bad hail came in and knocked
the flowers of our pecan nuts we’ve
actually protected one watered as a food
resource a safe food resource for them
but depend on it for five months that’s
our sanctuary we have opportunity to see
up to 30% of the global population
flying above that sanctuary sharing with
us all of that activity and flattener
socializing we then identified the
genome we looked at the dendrogram to
try and see whether this was an endemic
virus or new one that came from
somewhere else
it was endemic it had always been there
we were the problem we had destroyed
these forests they were not feeding
themselves effectively they were
malnourished and the virus took over
each year each year in the malt season
we there was found dead birds we engaged
the media to find people to help us we
would mobilize we’ve got every church
every shopping center in the the
distributional range of this parrot to
try and mobilize people to get them
before they’re dead we achieved that
this is Ellis she was the first one to
come in a real fight so I’ve never seen
a parrot in such poor condition she was
50% underweight she remained in this
incubator for four months unable to lift
her head and when she did she showed us
while she was still alive she’s a
fighter and she was hissing at us every
day buying a batch of finger off when
you’re trying to feed her but she did
make it
she made it along with buddy with King
and with raid on the side there
National Geographic joined us for the
release of these birds please go online
and try and find that video was a very
very special moment for all of us it’s a
moment that motivates me to carry on my
work with these birds we work with
communities these are our growers and
some Thompson pandu and they’re happy to
have us they lost their wilderness the
by a yeast we’ll have this these forests
used to be able to support them same as
the mother Okavango can support the BAE
but not anymore we are teaching these
people hard – and funding it’s hard to
find seeds how to germinate them we then
also called micro nurseries in their
homes it’s it doesn’t make sense for us
to build 50 little micro nurseries all
over the villages at
decentralized is everything but involves
people it involves communities the kids
are watering these plants this granny
over here I interviewed her two weeks
ago or three weeks ago and she said to
me that every morning she comes and she
sprinkles laughs on these trees and it
works it really does she grows them
faster than anyone else in six months
she hasn’t met the Hackney want them to
plant there’s me happy as will help you
to spot to plant those trees into these
forests that need them so much this is
our planting team at hala they’re
planting wild olives wild plums these
are Pisa grow a little bit faster than
the other words it’s an interim plan so
in ten years time they have food
orchards to try and feed in is that the
University of Forte we are reading the
green campus initiative there this is a
university within their range parrots do
visit this and we have planted one and a
thousand trees on campus with those
students we’ve put up hundreds of nice
boxes throughout the mountain range
trying to give them places to live
they’re not using them as much as we
would like but we did have our first
success last year with three chicks
coming from one of our boxes it’s going
to take a while before they adopt them
they need to prove that these are safe
places to breed now I’m going to finish
off by talking a little bit about the
sense of place and wilderness now the
only way that I can describe this
feeling of being in a wild place to a
person that’s never been in the
wilderness and the true wilderness is
when you’re in a big football stadium
you all by yourself the lights are on
there’s a big piece of art you look at
this suddenly the lights got it’s pitch
dark it’s the middle of night it’s time
to feel that there’s something else
there there’s someone else there that’s
something else that thing that’s making
you feel uneasy in the darkness is the
wild in the middle of your city still
there yeah I’m still here and that is
something we need to open ourselves to
when you’re in a wilderness area it’s
just plain to see we’re all invigorated
by it we feel alive almost for the first
time that’s there to be had in your
garden up in the top of a mountain where
you go hiking your favorite river where
you go kayaking
we will open ourselves to that we all I
know here are addicted to it in some way
and even if we never get to go to the
Okavango
we still need to care as a globe as a
global community and make it a world
heritage site
we’re fighting to do that’s why I’m
working with you guys to do I’m here to
stand in front of the National
Geographic Society and I’m so proud to
be part of this organization now you
guys have been doing it for 125 years
you’re gonna carry on do it for another
hundred twenty-five we have a better
penning you’ve done or the photographs
we’ve taken and put out into the world
to four hundred million people
carry on supporting dereck and Beverly
and trying to save that great big cats
of this world Mike Fay he worries about
the fisheries and the elephants and put
his word out there I love the fact that
you’ve given me a blog and I’ve been
able to put this out into the world
congratulations for everything you’ve
done and thank you for your time
Oh
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